This post is motivated by an article in the Comments section of the 22 April 2017 edition of the New Scientist by Dave Levit titled “Marchers, raise your banners for the tortoise pace of progress.” The referenced March is the March for Science taking place today April 22. His article begins, “The March for Science reflects the growing gap between slow, steady, vital scientific gains and quick-fire opportunist US politics. A week is a long time in politics. Science, however, is in it for the long haul. Whether studying rising sea levels or isolating proteins in fruit fly nerve cells so that many years down the line we might have a new drug for Parkinson’s, science does not fit with the day-to-day fixed-term imperatives of government.

Politicians back fracking ventures that quickly create jobs, but talk down the risks of long-term pollution. They take credit for the progress made in renewable energy, ignoring the decades of work underlying this progress. Levit continues “The slow march of scientific progress does not match well with politics even on a good day. “And today is not a good day.”

The science community has been shocked by the preliminary budget outlines from Donald Trump. From the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to NASA’s earth science mission, science would get a buzz cut. This makes perfect sense for Donald Trump. Levit writes, “the impulsivity and lack of long-term thinking that places science at odds with politics seems less a feature and more a tenet of Trump’s view. Why fund the NIH properly, helping to produce the medical advances of 2030, when he can’t see past his next tweet? If politics couldn’t handle science’s tortoise pace years ago, it should be no surprise to see this disdain reach a new peak in a faster moving age.”

This March is one day aimed at making people understand how unimportant one day actually is. March participants are simply trying to drum up greater appreciation for evidence, scientific rigor, methodology, and expertise. The March of Science is one of slow, steady, incremental progress.

Trump’s proposed cuts would have an immediate effect—less government spending. But their long-term outcomes, such as delayed development of life saving drugs or preventing seas from rising to swallow Miami, apparently have little effect for many elected officials.

Levit notes that there is a chance cuts will accelerate the pace of impacts until it becomes impossible to ignore them, even though some of the damage would be irreversible.

It remains to be seen whether the March can wake us up before that happens.